What do we know about the role of extended families and kinship networks for redistributing resources? What gaps in our knowledge most need to be filled? How can we best organize current work and identify priorities for future research? These questions are important for several reasons:...

We test for the motivation for private inter-household transfers of income by modeling transfer behavior under two alternative hypotheses: altruistic and exchange-motivated transfers. Knowing the underlying motivation for private income transfers is important because such motivation determines...

This paper tests for the motives for private income transfers. We consider two motives: altruism and exchange. The question of private transfer motives is important because such motivation can influence the effects of public income transfers on the distribution of income. Using a household...

This paper explores the liquidity constraint on consumer liabilities. While much empirical evidence attests to the importance of liquidity constraints in the U.S. economy, evidence about the effects of borrowing constraints on consumer balance sheets is scarce. Using the 1983 Survey of Consumer...